The Frequency Theorem
by Lionne6
Summary: Amy learns the truth when she brings Sheldon a picnic dinner at his office, and Sheldon gets his comeuppance. One-shot.


Insert copyright disclaimer here. Thanks. - Lio

* * *

_Sheldon, _Amy typed, and it made her smile just to spell out his name with her fingers, _Where are you? It's date night, and we agreed to meet for Thai food. _

Amy remembered their conversation from the previous evening and decided a follow-up might be in order._ They don't have sporks here, either, _she added.

_Amy,_ read Sheldon's sudden response mere seconds later, _I am bound by my duty to Psychics, to Science and to the noble people of planet earth to balance this equation elegantly despite what this stupid brute Kripke thinks. This is an ethical conundrum and I must stand firm in the face of hunger and yes, even not seeing my girlfriend tonight._

Amy typed quickly, _Did he steal the blue dry erase marker again?_

_YES HE STOLE THE BLUE DRY ERASE MARKER AND HE WON'T GIVE IT BACK. HE IS MEAN. TELL HIM TO GIVE IT BACK, AMY. HERE IS HIS NUMBER._

Amy sighed, and looked over the menu for a moment, deciding what to write back to her boyfriend, the always delightful Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper. She typed back, fingers striking her keypad in an annoyed clip, _Is it possible that you are currently in possession of the black, red and green marker at present, and are, in fact, refusing to allow him access to these markers so that he can correctly indicate atomic weight and mass on the equation? _

_No. Maybe. That is beside the point. I cannot leave here until he gives me the blue dry erase marker back and agrees not to come into my office and change the equation while I am not here like he did last night. It took me until lunch to set it back right, and now he disagrees with the proper rate of decay and insists on calling me a creepy control freak. Tell him I am not a control freak, Amy. Here is his number. Tell him!  
_

Amy paused, and before she could answer a series of texts came through.

_This is a matter of principle, Amy. I know as a fellow scientist you understand. _

_I so loathe him. _

_I'm as hungry as a wolf who has been staring at 3 pigs in a brick house for a week. Are you sure there are no sporks? What does the food smell like? Can you see into the kitchen? _

_Does it look like there are tangerine or orange peels on the counter? What brand of mustard do they carry?  
_

_Hello? Are you there?_

Amy paused, and then typed back, _As always, I admire your principle and discipline, Sheldon. Stand your ground. Never surrender._ _Don't you dare leave that office or the future of physics will be forever in jeopardy._

Amy crammed her phone in her pocket, ignoring the buzzing and vibrating coming from her hip. _That should definitely hold him for at least an hour,_ Amy reasoned. When a raven-haired lady came forward with a notepad, she placed her order in flawless Thai.

After a pause she added, "And please make that to go."

* * *

Amy stood in front of the door to Sheldon's office, shifting her weight anxiously from one foot to the other. She knew both Sheldon and Kripke were inside, as she could hear them yelling about the proper methods to achieve elegance in mathematics and their respective college educations through the door. Sheldon was hurling a brilliant insult against someone's alma mater, and Amy could tell that that someone retorting about Sheldon's "wedneck Texan upbwinging" was none other than Barry Kripke by his rhotacistic speech.

Carefully, she adjusted the red poncho around her shoulders, the red and white plaid flannel blanket over one arm, and the white wicker picnic basket in her other hand. She was relatively sure that her denim skirt, red tights, and brand new red clogs were creating a devastating "come-hither" appearance. Sheldon always loved it when she dressed up, and while she was not yet the free spirit that Sheldon was, Amy felt she was starting to see the fun in it.

She cleared her throat and knocked twice on the door before simply turning the knob and walking in with her chin held high, at what she was sure was a saucy, sexy angle. Although it felt suspiciously like she was staring too much at the ceiling, she kept it up because she had committed to it, and bounded into the room like the beautiful, sassy heroine from her favorite historical romance novel.

"Sheldon! I hope you're hungr-" she started to say, speaking in what she hoped was a way that hinted strongly at her feminine wiles and cheerful rescue, but that thought was cut off as she ran directly into a filing cabinet by the door with a resounding thud. "Eeeeeeeeee," she groaned, hunching over at the pain throbbing through her right knee.

"Amy?" Sheldon sounded alarmed, and in a moment was at her side. He took the blanket from her arms and looked down at her and then her knee with concern. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Amy lied, putting on a brave smile that even to her felt more like a wince. "Peachy. Peachy keen even." She glanced up at the other man in the room, briefly taking in the sight of the ferret-faced individual known to her as one of Sheldon's sworn mortal enemies, Dr. Barry Kripke. As she took a limping hop into Sheldon's office she kept up her sassy attitude, refusing to show any signs of weakness. She straightened her spine and rearranged the red poncho around her shoulders, tossing her head again in what she was sure looked like the gesture of a woman with an undefeatable spirit rather than the spastic gesture it felt like. She tried to smile at him, but it felt more like a grimace, so she let it die on her lips and found herself instead just managing a penetrating stare.

"Whoa," Kripke said, staring at the tips of Amy's clogs and dragging his gaze up her body to the place where her red poncho was tied at the base of her pale throat. "So THIS is Amy." His voice lowered as he nearly purred, "WEE-mawkable." His eyebrows twitched at her suggestively, and for some reason Amy found herself instinctually drawing a bit closer to Sheldon for protection. To her surprise, Sheldon seemed to draw a little closer to her.

"Dr. Kripke," Sheldon said smartly, his tone clipped, "I'd like you to meet my girlfriend, Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler."

"Hell-woo," Kripke replied, taking a step closer and holding out his hand," A pweasuh to meet you. Pwease call me Bawwy."

Amy kept all of her weight balanced on one leg, and shifted the picnic basket to her left hand so she could extend the right one to Kripke. "How do you do?" she replied politely, never forgetting her manners no matter the foe. _She was a lady like that,_ she reminded herself.

"I know how YOU do," Kripke replied suggestively, taking her hand and pulling her forward suddenly, so that she tripped over her smarting knee, practically landing up against his chest. She could see that his eyes were deep green from up this close, though she had no idea what the expression in them meant when he pulled her pale hand up to his lips and kissed it as if, Amy feared, he was about to eat it. She heard Sheldon make a strangled noise behind her, and quickly fell back, hopping still on one foot.

"Amy," Sheldon said, putting his free hand under her elbow, gripping it firmly, "Come sit down." He started to look around his own office as if he had never seen it before. The only place to sit in the entire place was his own office chair behind his desk, which Amy suspected was by design. Even the extra chair he usually kept was missing – probably so that Barry Kripke would have no place to rest while they were working together.

As for Kripke, he watched on in fascination, staring at Sheldon's hand on Amy's elbow. Then he suddenly inhaled, closed his eyes, and looked at Amy's picnic basket. "Is that Thai food?" he inquired, licking his lips and continuing to stare. Sheldon quickly looked down at the basket as well.

"I brought dinner for Sheldon," Amy answered Kripke, her tone full of ice. She sweetened it considerably for Sheldon, gesturing to the floor and telling him, "Spread out the blanket on the floor, and I can sit down." She paused and added, "It's clean, I kept it in its plastic dry cleaner bag in a plastic, airtight container in the trunk of my car."

Satisfied, Sheldon unfolded the blanket, shook it with a snap, and then laid it out on the floor. Barry helped him with the far corners, and after waiting a beat to see if Sheldon would consider helping her sit down (a thought which didn't occur to him at all), Amy sunk down slowly, gingerly bending both her knees and settling her weight down on the back of her heels. Bending so far and sitting in such a position was alright – she had not seriously hurt her knee, she would merely have a horrible bruise – but she winced at the pain which flashed in her kneecap quickly before it subsided. The wince apparently caught Sheldon's attention, and he sat down himself quickly, going to his knees and then shifting to his hip so that he sat behind her, but to the side. His hand fluttered towards her shoulder and then dropped without actually touching her.

To Amy's surprise, Kripke dropped down on her other side and spiritedly flipped the lid of the picnic basket open. "I smell spwing wolls!" he crowed merrily, "and fwied wice!"

"Those are for Sheldon," Amy objected, even as she reached up and pulled loose the ties of the red poncho covering her shoulders. She pulled it off and placed it to the side, revealing the white oxford shirt and red cardigan she was wearing underneath it. She had planned to dress up as Little Red Riding Hood to impress Sheldon, her hungry wolf, and this was the best she could manage. She still felt a little like a harlot wearing so much red.

"Widiculous," Kripke was saying, as he took white styrofoam containers out of the basket and placed them on the blanket, "Cweawy we have enough for evewyone." He smiled and started to open containers, checking the contents.

Sheldon objected, "There's only three of us – how are we going to divide up four spwing woll–SPRING ROLLS," he paused and gave Kripke a dark look, "between 3 of us?"

In a twinkle Kripke had a spring roll in hand, dipped into some plum sauce, and stuffed in his mouth. Or tried to stuff the whole thing in his mouth – there was an awkward pause as he took his time chewing down the length of the roll until he could fit the entire thing in his mouth.

"Only thwee," Kripke mumbled grotesquely around the food in his mouth, gesturing to the white Styrofoam box that now, indeed, only held 3 spring rolls. He smiled – _thankfully closed mouthed_, Amy thought – back at Sheldon, and then continued to divide food among all of them. Amy knew that Sheldon was thoroughly rattled when he didn't grill her about whether the soy sauce was low sodium or make a remark about the brand printed on the mustard packets. She glanced sidelong at him, and found his expression dark but distracted. He was taking his serving of food from Kripke, but his eyes had returned to the board behind his enemy's head, and Amy clearly recognized the signs of certain wheels turning in Sheldon's mind. _It was,_ she reckoned, _a clear case of "Physics Face."_

With a small sigh, Amy turned back to Barry Kripke and considered how she could possibly start a conversation with him on any topic she'd actually want to hear him discuss in his horrible Elmer Fudd accent. She studied him sidelong, her green eyes thoughtful, realizing that she might have put on too much mascara today. She could barely see the greying but still youthful physicist through the foliage of her lashes. Just when Kripke looked at her to pass her a plate, it felt like a flake got in her eyes, and she started blinking uncontrollably.

"Yew're such a fwirt," Kripke said, looking all the world like he was melting slightly. "You can't contwol yewself, can yew, yew she-dewvil. Tell me, Amy, wewer yew always like this, or is it your fweaky sex wife with Sheldon that bwought it out in you?"

Sheldon's head spun back to the conversation at hand, his eyes darting between Amy and Kripke in confusion that quickly turned to horror. Amy's face, contorted in pain as she tried to pluck at her lashes and get the mascara flake out of her eye, instantly froze, and then she broke into a mass of uncontrollable rapid blinking again.

"Kripke!" Sheldon said, mortified, eyebrows raising practically to his hairline as he tried to give his fellow scientist what he thought was a stern look, but instead just came across as completely wild around the eyes.

"My what?" Amy inquired, even as she began wiping the tears that had erupted from her eyes away with her fingertips. Her mascara ran, smearing under her eyes, which thankfully were no longer in pain.

"Sheldon told me all about it," Kripke replied proudly, looking back at her with unabashed curiosity, "Fwequwent, intense, and whims-whick'ee inventive." He wiggled his brows at her three times.

"Frequent….intense…..and whimsically inventive?" Amy drawled out very slowly, turning her head at the same rate of speed to stare at Sheldon, who, oddly enough, seemed to have developed a rabid fascination with the ceiling.

"Don't bwame him," Kripke said, "I figwured it out myself! I could tell fwom the quawity of his work that he was cwearwee distwacted fwom univewersity business by all the sex he was getting at home."

In an instant, Amy remembered the scene last week, of Sheldon sobbing on the couch and her attempts to console him. It all came back as she listened to Barry and studied the throbbing vein in Sheldon's exposed throat.

"Yes," Amy near-whispered, watching Sheldon's eyes dart wildly around the ceiling, staring at him even as everything became crystal clear in her mind. "All. The. Sex," she said, each word astounding to her herself utter so clearly. Very carefully, very deliberately, Amy placed all ten of her fingertips on the ground, shifted her weight from her heels, and settled her hips down exactly next to Sheldon's, leaning slowly into him until she felt his chest against her back. She picked up his hand and pulled it into her lap, placing her own hand over it. She could swear she could feel the hammering of his heart between her shoulder blades as she nestled possessively against him, lifted her chin, looked Kripke dead in the eye, and purred coolly, "Well. I guess the cat is out of the bag then."

Kripke broke into a grin, eyes widening with glee even as they seemed struck by some odd gleam that made Amy want to wither up and die inside.

"This is unbeWEAVEable!" Kripke cried, putting down his food and eagerly turning to Amy, "Okay, tell me honestwee," he put up his hands and asked, "Why Coopah? Why would a woman wike you be attwatched to a physicist? I'm gonna take notes." He looked around, and then pulled a notebook down from the top of Sheldon's desk, grabbed a pen, and poised himself like a dutiful news reporter, looking up at Amy expectantly.

"Well," Amy began thoughtfully, "like a lioness selecting a mate based on his mane, or a hen picking her peacock on the length of his feathers, I chose Sheldon based on the strength of his secondary sexual characteristics." Amy was amazed by the way she could keep her own voice sound so cool and logical even as her brain whirred away like mad, "I suppose I have decided that Sheldon is my optimal choice of mate based on the 'sexy son hypothesis' of evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher. I've chosen Sheldon based on his impressive, above average height, his superior intellect, and," Amy couldn't help mentioning it, as it was only logical after all, "and his ample intromittent organ, which is quite colossal when erect."

Sheldon's head whipped around faster than Kripke's jaw could drop. Amy felt his hand clutch at the fabric of her skirt tightly in his shock.

"By which I mean," Amy continued frankly, "He has an enormous–"

"I know what you mean," Kripke interjected quickly, putting up one hand as if it would be effective in warding off the mental image. It wasn't, his eyes crinkled tightly closed, and he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "I….I'm sowwy," he lifted to his feet awkwardly, "I'm sowwy I…" he dropped his hand, pushed himself the rest of the way back up, half-stumbling to the door. On the way, though, he paused and put one hand firmly on Sheldon's shoulder, gave him a certain awed and knowing look, and then continued to stumble out without another word.

The door closed firmly behind him. The room went completely silent. Sheldon continued to staring at her for a beat, but seemed to quickly collect himself. He drawled, "Well, that was an effecti–"

Amy deliberately but delicately removed his hand from her lap and shifted her weight away from him. She moved directly opposite him, leaning her back up against his desk. She could not look at him, and her cheeks burned so strongly it felt almost physically painful.

Sheldon stared at her, struck silent for a moment. Finally, he asked hesitantly, "Amy?"

She did not answer him, but she sat there breathing heavily, jaw clenched, eyes cast down. The wheels in her head were continuing to race, and her emotions shifted like dunes in a sandstorm, swaying between her shock at Sheldon's apparent lies, her rage at the size of his colossal ego which had come before her reputation, before the truth, and the inescapable, tiny bursts of joy at the mere thought that Sheldon had not only been imagining their sex life, but had been bragging about it. It warred in her that he had done so for all the wrong reasons while even so she felt alarmingly elated just to know he had. She couldn't sort out how she felt, but she stared unseeing at the floor as it turned over and over again in her head, as her emotions and logic fought against each other in a dual battle of girlish delight and womanly anger.

Sheldon watched her face, which to him was a palette of mystery, her emotions and thoughts impossible to discern. Finally, his own eyes cast down, he traced out a plaid square with one finger. He whispered, "Are you mad at me?"

Amy looked up in surprise, but when she took in his face, she found she could barely stand to look at it. An odd thought crossed her mind, one brought by both anger and jest, and she felt compelled to obey its brilliance, its symmetry. She suddenly rose to her feet and crossed towards Sheldon's wall, looking at the items in the tray attached to his white board. She saw what she was looking for, and put her hand out, closing it around the object. Still, she hesitated. She needed to be clear; there needed to be words first.

"I know it upset you," she said, "When you thought Kripke's work was better than yours. I never figured out how you came to terms with it, but I thought you simply raised your game and beat him fair and square. But instead it was unscrupulous and…and…TRIANGULAR!" She half turned on him, weaving a little bit on her feet in that way she did when she was emotional, "You lied, and saved your reputation by throwing mine, all of my virtue, under the bus."

Sheldon started to rise to his feet, answering, "No, I think that you'll find that that is..." he barely paused before twisting his head to look over his shoulder, "very much the truth." He looked down at his feet, as hangdog as a little boy.

"Are you proud of yourself?" Amy whispered.

Sheldon shuffled his feet, and did not look up at her. Several seconds ticked by before he managed to choke out, "No." It took him several more seconds to manage to lift his eyes to hers and manage a soft, "I'm sorry."

Amy could clearly read his regret in his eyes, and what it cost him to admit even a shred of lack of pride in himself in front of her. She could finally bear to look at him again, and she felt a snap as the tension figuratively drained from her body. The corner of one mouth twitched, as his apology and the loss of her anger freed her to continue on with the wild scheme that had come to her just moments before. She continued to stare at him, even as her hand closed around the object in the white board's tool tray.

"You lied to me," Amy noted sternly, and when Sheldon seemed to rise as if to protest she amended herself swiftly, "You lied ABOUT me. About us. And you failed to confide in me nor include me in your scheme."

"Yes," Sheldon whispered in agreement. His brows knit together, and he looked even more concerned.

"Then," Amy said, knitting her own brows together, "To regain the equilibrium in our relationship, according to our past history, you must suffer the consequences of lying." She lifted the ruler out of the tray, turned up her opposite hand, and slapped the wooden length of it smartly into her open palm. "You'll have to be punished."

Sheldon's jaw dropped open, and he stared at the ruler for a moment before lifting his chin bravely. "Alright," he said, shrugging his shoulders as if it he was undaunted. Amy felt a little weak in the knees just at this sign of his willingness. "Spare the rod, spoil the child," Sheldon said. He nodded to himself, though he was unable to look away from the ruler being tapped in Amy's palm.

"Excellent," Amy answered, lifting her own chin archly, her tone brusque. She turned, marched to his office chair, sat down and pushed it back against the far wall, leaving open plenty of room. She swatted the ruler twice against her knee in invitation.

Sheldon stared at her knees, then at her face, and then gave a nonchalant shrug and wandered right over, immediately draping himself over her thighs. Yet, for all of his bravado, when his long body curled around her slender legs, Amy should feel the shivers racking his lanky body. For a split second, she almost felt sorry for him, and the rest of her anger bled away, replaced with some odd sensation bubbling up from deep inside of herself that she couldn't quite identify. _What had she gotten herself into?_

Amy stared down at the round, khaki-clad buttocks of her boyfriend, Sheldon Cooper. In the oddest way, they seemed to stare right back at her, challenging her, asking her if she was woman enough to handle them. Amy rested one hand carefully on Sheldon's back, glad that he seemed to be shaking enough that he couldn't tell how shaky her own hand felt. She lifted the ruler in the other, and opened her mouth to say something, anything, but then she closed it with her hand frozen in midair. She could feel something against her thigh that was unmistakable to any red-blooded, heterosexual woman in the known universe. Slowly, she dropped her hand and soothed it over the gentle slope of Sheldon's ass.

Then she leaned forward, took a generous slice of flesh in her teeth, and gave it a nice firm nip.

Sheldon screamed like a little girl, twisted violently in her lap and crashed to the floor in a long-limbed heap. He rolled under his own desk like a scarecrow, and all of those strange emotions percolating inside of Amy came bubbling up in peal after peal of pure laughter. She threw the ruler on his desk, clutched her sides, and curled up with her knees to her chest, beating her fists against her knees as she howled with mirth.

Sheldon managed to recover and crouched on his knees, turning to look over his shoulder at his buttocks. Pulling some of the fabric around, he saw, clear as day, the wet imprint of her mouth on his pants. His jaw dropped for a moment, and he turned to look at the astounding brunette vixen who was, completely, inexplicably, overcome with a fit of the giggles. Slowly, he sunk back down to the ground, careful to gently adjust the front of his pants as he did so, telling himself firmly that she could not possibly have noticed.

"Women," he swore, leaning back against his desk and watching Amy with a mixture of amazement and befuddlement, "They really do be crazy."

* * *

Love to all the fellow Shamy shippers!

- Lionne Lovegood


End file.
